ASRock have changed in over the past couple of years from a choice of last resort for the budget conscious to creating some intriguing products. Look at how clean the design of their Z270 Extreme4 is, with heatsinks covering the majority of the components and a nice silver and black colour scheme. Aesthetics aside, it also has some nice features, such as a 1.5 amp water pump header, a pair of M.2 slots, USB 3.1 in both A and C flavours, three PCIe 3.0 16x slots of which two are reinforced metal and yes, it has Aura RGB LED controls. TechPowerUp tested it with an i7-7700K, check out their results here.

"It's Here! Our first look at Intel's Kaby Lake-supporting motherboards comes from none other than ASRock, with their white and black mainstream motherboard the ASRock Z270 Extreme4. With all the base features of Intel's latest, including a bit of ASRock's engineering magic thrown in, the ASRock Z270 Extreme4 is the perfect example of what you can expect from Intel's Kaby Lake platform."

Last week AMD provided additional details on the chipsets and AM4 platform (JoshTekk article link) that will support the company's upcoming Ryzen processors. On tap are the X370, B350, A320 for enthusiast, mid range, and budget markets respectively and the odd-man-out and somewhat mysterious pinky sized X300 chipset specifically geared for Mini ITX and other small form factor motherboards. Gigabyte answered some of Josh and I's questions on what actual motherboards will look like and what features manufacturers would take advantage of when it unveiled (nearly) its full lineup of AM4 motherboards at CES 2017.

Except for an X300-based motherboard which was absent from their booth, Gigabyte teased four new motherboards using each of AMD's new chipsets. Specifically, there will be two Aorus-branded high end X370-based motherboards known as GA-AX370-Gaming 5, GA-AX370-Gaming K5, a midrange B350-based Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 motherboard, and a budget micro ATX A320M-HD3 using the lower end A320 chipset.

All four of the motherboards surround the 1331-pin AM4 processor socket with four dual channel DDR4 DIMM slots, six SATA 6Gbps ports, at least one M.2 slot, at least two PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots, and modern USB 3.1 external IO connections.

The Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5 is the company's highest end motherboard and is clad in silver and black with white heatspreaders and "armor" plating. Being part of the Aorus brand, the motherboard has RGB LEDs and is reportedly at feature parity with Gigabyte's RGB-lit Z270 offerings. Powered by a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS, the Gaming 5 uses a 10-phase VRM along with large heat spreaders to facilitate overclocking. The board features three PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots that are electrically wired as x16/x8/x4 with support for CrossFireX and SLI (though only AMD will let you go to three cards on the third x4 slot) and three PCI-E x1 slots. The storage subsystem includes a single U.2 port and two SATA Express connectors (part of the total six SATA 6Gbps, not in addition to).

External I/O includes:

1x PS/2

6x USB 3.1 Gen 1

4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (1 x Type-C)

2x Gigabit Ethernet

1x Intel

1x Killer Ethernet 2500

6x Audio

5x Analog out

1x SPDIF

Other little features like a BIOS code readout display and hybrid fan headers are part of the higher end boards but absent on the lower end ones.

Moving from the Gaming-5 to the GA-AX370-Gaming K5, the heat spreaders are scaled back and the color scheme is black and silver instead of white, silver, and black. Further, the power phases are less robust at seven phases, there is no LED display for error codes, no U.2 port, and no Killer Networks Ethernet. The slightly lower end board does keep the M.2 slot, SATA Express connectors, and PCI-E slots of the Gaming 5, however.

The Gigabyte AB350-Gaming 3 is where things start to noticeably change in the feature set. The VRM area is scaled back further with seven phases and a smaller heatsink. There is no U.2 or SATA Express, and one fewer PCI-E x1 slot than the X370 offerings. The motherboard does have three PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots (I am guessing still wired as x16/x8/x4 but AMD's slide from Josh's story is a bit unclear in this regard) but officially CrossFire and SLI are not supported according to AMD's slide. Around back, the board differs from the higher end models by including display outputs and lacking S/PDIF audio outputs. Specifically, the Gaming 3 board features:

2x USB 2.0

1x PS/2

4x Video outputs

1x VGA

1x DVI

1x DisplayPort 1.2

1x HDMI 2.0 [updated 10:32]

4x USB 3.1 Gen 1

2x USB 3.1 Gen 2

1x Intel Gigabit Ethernet

3x Analog audio outputs (AmpUp! audio)

Finally, the lowest end A320M-HD3 is a micro ATX motherboard with four DDR4 slots, six SATA port, two PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots (likely wired as x8/x4), a single M.2 slot, and a PCI slot of all things. The all black board uses a 7 phase VRM and thanks to most of the connectivity being housed in the processor and A320 chipset, the PCB looks rather barren. This does have the positive effect of allowing AMD to still put four DIMM slots on the board and two PCI-E slots with room to spare. External I/O on this board is identical to the AB350-Gaming 3 above.

In all, it is refreshing to see an updated AMD motherboard platform with the latest storage and graphics connectivity options, and while SATA Express and even U.2 aren't as useful as they could be (not many products actually use those connectors, M.2 has really stolen the show here) the inclusion of native USB 3.1 Gen 2 is great as is the ability to use all six SATA 6Gbps ports along with dual graphics cards (things get dicer when adding PCI-E storage and/or using the 4th x16 slot which may reduce the number of available SATA ports but that is a bit beyond this article.) It is nice to see these features coming from AMD directly and not having to rely on third party chips for modern features as AMD's AM3 platform had to. Seeing the initial launch boards take advantage of the new features fully is promising as well though I expect to see different configurations in the audio, M.2, and external I/O departments from future Gigabyte boards and their competitors.

I am curious to see how well the chipsets perform versus Intel's in the USB 3.1 and PCI-E storage departments as well as how overclocking will work with Ryzen and how far the AM4 platform boards will be able to push the new chips. It appears that AM4 has Zen off to a good start, and here's hoping that the AM4 platform will carry Zen into the future and help Ryzen, ahem, rise up to the task of delivering on all those performance promises from AMD!

For more photos and information on Gigabyte's AM4 offerings, The Tech Report got a first look at the boards last week and Gamer's Nexus shot some video footage of them on the CES show floor.

Introduction

Introduction

Courtesy of ASUS

The Prime Z270-A motherboard is one of ASUS' initial offering integrating the Intel Z270 chipset. The board features ASUS' Channel line aesthetics with a black PCB and white plastic accents. The board's integrated Intel Z270 chipset integrates support for the latest Intel LGA1151 Kaby Lake processor line as well as Dual Channel DDR4 memory. Offered at a price-competitive MSRP of $164, the Prime Z270-A offers a compelling price point with respect to its integrated features and performance potential.

Courtesy of ASUS

ASUS does not cut corners on any of their boards with the Prime Z270 sharing similar power component circuitry as its higher tiered siblings, featuring a 10-phase digital power delivery system. ASUS integrated the following features into the Prime Z270-A board: six SATA 3 ports; two M.2 PCIe x4 capable ports; an Intel I219-V Gigabit NIC; three PCI-Express x16 slots; four PCI-Express x1 slots; on-board power and MemOK! buttons; an EZ XMP switch; Crystal Sound 3 audio subsystem; integrated DisplayPort, HDMI, and DVI video ports; and USB 3.0 and 3.1 Type-A and Type-C port support.

The Gaming 9's premium audio features "a combination of Hi-Fi grade WIMA capacitors and Nichicon audio grade Fine Gold capacitors", which is about as premium as it gets!

Specs for the Gaming 8 are virtually identical to the Gaming 9's above - with a couple of notable exceptions: The Gaming 8 uses a Bitspower G-Chill Hybrid Water Block instead of the Gaming 9's EKWB option for the CPU VRMs, and it offers a different LAN configuration, with a combo comprised of 1x Intel GbE and 1x Killer E2500 NIC, rather than the Gaming 9's dual Killer E2500 NICs.

Next up are the Gaming 7, and Gaming K7 models (and no, the K7 is not an AMD board from the Socket A era, I checked):

The feature list for the Gaming 7 motherboard is very close to the Gaming 8 (and Gaming 9, listed above), though a few things will be lost compared to its more premium siblings, including the removal of a water block for the VRMs, missing ZxRi 120dB+ audio support, and "merely" 3x GPU support, compared to the 4-way graphics support of the Gaming 8 and 9.

Finally we have the Gaming 5 and Gaming K5, which look to be the most affordable offerings in the new lineup, though features are still very good for a gaming motherboard.

The primary difference in features between the Gaming 5 and Gaming K5 is integrated LAN support, with the Gaming K5 losing the second Intel NIC and retaining the Killer E2500 as its sole onboard option.

The AORUS Gaming motherboards are available to order now, and a look at Newegg.com this afternoon shows pricing ranging from $179.99 for the Gaming K5, priced incrementally all the way up to $519.99 for the deluxe Gaming 9.

AM4 Edging Closer to Retail

Many of us were thinking that one of the bigger stories around CES would be the unveiling of a goodly chunk of AM4 motherboards. AM4 has been around for about half a year now, but only in system integrator builds (such as HP). These have all been based around Bristol Ridge APU (essentially an updated Carrizo APU). These SOCs are not exactly barn burners, but they provide a solid foundation for a low-cost build. The APUs features 2 modules/4 cores, a GCN based GPU, and limited southbridge I/O functionality.

During all this time the motherboards available from these OEMs are very basic units not fit for retail. Users simply could not go out and buy a Bristol Ridge APU and motherboard for themselves off of Newegg, Amazon, and elsewhere. Now after much speculation we finally got to see the first AM4 retail style boards unveiled at this year’s CES. AMD showed off around 16 boards based on previously unseen B350 and X370 chipsets.

AMD has had a pretty limited number of chipsets that they have introduced over the years. Their FM2+ offerings spanned the A series of chipsets, but they added very little in terms of functionality as compared to the 900 series that populate the AM3+ world. The latest offering from AMD was the A88x which was released in September 2013. At one time there was supposed to be a 1000 series of chipsets for AM3+, but those were cancelled and we have had the 900 series (which are identical to the previous 800 series) since 2011. This has been a pretty stagnant area for AMD and their partners. 3rd party chips have helped shore up the feature divide between AMD and Intel’s regular release of new chipsets and technologies attached to them.

There are three primary chipsets being released as well as two physical layer chips that allow the use of the onboard southbridge on Ryzen and Bristol Ridge. The X370 for the enthusiast market, the B350 for the mainstream, and then the budget A320. The two chipset options for utilizing the SOC’s southbridge functionality are the X300 and A/B300.

Before we jump into the chipsets we should take a look at what kind of functionality Ryzen and Bristol Ridge have that can be leveraged by motherboard manufacturers. Bristol Ridge is a true SOC in that it contains the GPU, CPU, and southbridge functionality to stand alone. Ryzen is different in that it does not have the GPU portion so it still requires a standalone graphics card to work. Bristol Ridge is based off of the older Carrizo design and does not feature the flexibility in its I/O connections that Ryzen does.

Bristol Ridge features up to 8 lanes of PCI-E 3.0. The I/O on it includes 2 native SATA6G ports as well as the ability to either utilize two more PCI-e lanes or have them as x2 NVME. That is about as flexible as it gets. It also natively supports four USB 3.1 gen 1 ports. For a chip that was designed to be a mobile focused SoC it makes sense that it will not max out PCI-E lanes or SATA ports. It still is enough to satisfy most mobile and SFF builds.

EVGA has introduced three new motherboards based on the new Intel Z270 chipset, with new versions of their Classified K, FTW K, and Stinger designs.

We'll start with the Z270 Classified K, an EATX form-factor board with all of the storage support bases covered (M.2, U.2, and Intel Optane Memory ready), Killer E2500 and Intel i219 NICs, Creative Sound Core3D audio, along with "a newly-designed VRM and hardware design built for cutting-edge performance and overclockability".

EVGA Z270 Classified K features:

Highly-Efficient 13 Phase Digital VRM

Onboard Power, Reset and Clear CMOS

EVGA E-LEET X Tuning Utility

Triple BIOS Support

M.2 NVMe PCI-E SSD Support

U.2 NVMe SSD Support

Intel Optane Memory Ready

Intel Thunderbolt Support

Switchable DC / PWM Fan Control

Onboard CPU Temperature Monitor

300% Increase in CPU Gold Content

Next there is Z270 FTW K, a standard ATX form-factor option that offers the same storage flexibility as the larger Classified K including Intel Optane Memory support, Killer E2400 and Intel i219 NICs, and 11-Phase Digital VRM power delivery (among other things).

EVGA Z270 FTW K features:

Highly-Efficient 11 Phase Digital VRM

Onboard Power, Reset and Clear CMOS

EVGA E-LEET X Tuning Utility

M.2 NVMe PCI-E SSD Support

U.2 NVMe SSD Support

Intel Optane Memory Ready

Switchable DC / PWM Fan Control

Onboard CPU Temperature Monitor

150% Increase in CPU Gold Content

Finally, there is the mini-ITX Z270 Stinger, which packs a surprising number of features into a 6.7-inch square, including 802.11ac dual band Wi-Fi, an Intel i219 NIC, M.2, U.2, and Intel Optane support:

MSI is in full force at CES 2017 this year and in addition to external GPU docks, laptops, and a wall of Z270 motherboards, the company is using the event to show off its AM4 motherboards for the first time. At the top of the pack is the flagship X370 XPower Gaming Titanium clad in shimmering white and black and ready to support AMD’s upcoming “Ryzen” processors based on the Zen architecture.

Armed with AMD’s highest end X370 chipset, the flagship motherboard supports Ryzen CPUs as well as 7th generation APUs. There are four DDR4 memory slots on the board that MSI claims can operate in dual channel mode at up to 2667 MHz when overclocked. The board is rather powerful as well in that there are a lot of power connections. The usual 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS are joined by a 4-pin ATX up top and a 6-pin PCI-E connector on the bottom to stabilize overclocks. Further, a 10-phase VRM drives the AM4 socket and memory.

The motherboard further features three PCI-E x16 slots, three PCI-E x1 slots, two M.2 (32 Gb/s), one U.2 (32 Gb/s), and six SATA 6 Gbps ports. On the PCI-E front, the first two slots are connected to the processor and run at x8 when both slots are populated while the third slot is connected to the chipset and is electrically x4. As far as the SATA ports, two are directly connected to the processor and four come from the chipset.

MSI is including their own onboard audio solution called Audio Boost 4 as well as Gigabit Ethernet though the Steel Armor is covering the chips so it is hard to say exactly what they are using there. Also, Multi GPU setups are officially supported up to two way SLI HB or three way CrossFireX.

There is a plethora of USB support here with the X370 XPower Gaming Titanium supporting up to four USB 3.1 (one Type-C, three Type-A), eight USB 3.0, and seven USB 2.0 ports. If that is not enough, then you may have an addition to PC accessories (or just really like those USB missle batteries hehe).

Naturally, MSI is staying silent on pricing and availability of the motherboard(s) but I hope to see them out within the first half of the year! The design is certainly polarizing, but the features are there. I look forward to reading our review of this and other AM4 motherboards and how they fare at overclocking!

Tonight at CES AMD announced 16 new AM4 motherboards from five manufacturers and new PCs from over a dozen system builders. The motherboards will all bring support for dual channel DDR4 memory, NVMe, M.2 SATA devices and USB 3.1 support for AMD users. You can also expect at least 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0, perhaps more if we can spot some with bridge chips.

The gang should have updates on the full lineup soon including the Gigabyte A320M-HD3 not pictured above.

Biostar's X370 GT7 TOP and B350 GT3 TOP

ASRock's ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming and X370 Taichi.

There are more models on display and ASUS did announce the Asus B350M-C though we did not yet get a picture of it. All motherboards will offer compatibility with at least some existing coolers, we know for a fact that Corsair's Hydro H60, H100i and H110i as well as Noctua's NH-U12S, NHL9x65 and D15 will all be supported.

Press releases and previews of nifty kit you can't buy yet are great fun but occasionally you want to take a break and read a review with some substance. The Tech Report has just such content on offer, a review of the new MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. The design of the board is reminiscent of the previous generation as the socket remains the same, however this particular design is quite crowded around the socket which can limit the available cooling options. As you should expect, the board has RGB LEDs controlled by Mystic Light and the BIOS has updated versions of both Command Center and Gamming App utilities. The benchmarks back up the predictions we have made, the Z270 is a more polished version of the Z170 but there are no huge performance differences to be noted. Read on for the full story.

"MSI's Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard serves up the Z270 platform with a gaming bent and a lot of RGB LED lighting. We put this board through its paces to see whether MSI stuck the landing for its next generation of mainstream motherboards."

Introduction

Introduction

Courtesy of ASUS

The Strix Z270E Gaming motherboard is among the Z270-based offerings in ASUS ROG Strix product line. The board's integrated Intel Z270 chipset integrates support for the latest Intel LGA1151 Kaby Lake processor line as well as Dual Channel DDR4 memory. With an MSRP of $199, the Strix Z270E Gaming board comes at a premium, more than justified by its feature set.